To Preserve The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Independence And Integrity, Hasan Arifin Can Either Resign As PAC Chairman Or Summons Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak To Appear And Answer The PAC Investigating The RM42 Billion 1MDB Scandal.(EN/CN)

To Preserve The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Independence And Integrity, Hasan Arifin Can Either Resign As PAC Chairman Or Summons Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak To Appear And Answer The PAC Investigating The RM42 Billion 1MDB Scandal.

PAC Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin should stop sulking (merajuk) by refusing to call any press conferences and passing the blame to the media for his admission that it was not necessary to call in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to answer the PAC in its investigation of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). When Hasan was asked why he was not following the previous PAC chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed, who did not rule out calling Najib in the 1MDB probe, Hasan replied:
“Jangan la, saya pun nak cari makan jugak” (Please, I also need to make a living).

Calling in the prime minister, who is also the finance minister, is necessary as Datuk Seri Najib is directly involved as the Chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board. Hasan saying that he needs to “cari makan jugak”, has destroyed Hasan’s credibility as PAC Chairman by given an unfortunate public impression that appears to put his own personal livelihood above his public duties or public interest. Worse, he has also adversely tarnished the authority and image of PAC as an important Parliamentary select committee to ensure full public accountability and no wastage, financial breaches and leakages as well as misappropriation of public funds.

To preserve the PAC’s independence and integrity, Hasan Arifin can either resign as PAC Chairman, or summons Prime Minister Dato Seri Najib Abdul Razak to appear and answer PAC that is investigating the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal. Hasan cannot try to dismiss this serious lapse and admission of partiality by turning it into a remark to have lunch and made in jest with the intention to be friendly with the media, for whom he provided lunch.

As a Malay, Hasan could have said, “Sila semua makan tengahari” and has no excuse not to know what “cari makan” means, when all 30 million Malaysians are crystal clear as to the implications of the term “cari makan”. Malaysiakini had revealed that Hasan made the remark 14 minutes into his 18-minute long press conference, while the media was only invited to lunch at the beginning and towards the tail-end of the press conference.

Malaysiakini reported that Hasan also did not state that his remark was off the record. Malaysiakini had reproduced the excerpt from the PAC chief’s press conference:

Reporter: From what I understand, (former PAC chief) Nur Jazlan (Mohamed) said they would call credit raters, then they said if necessary, they will call the prime minister…

PAC will be calling in 1MDB president Arul Kanda Kandasamy and former CEO Datuk Shahrol Halmi in its meeting next week. The public is disappointed that Hasan does not think it is a priority to call in the central and controversial figure of multi-millionaire Low Taek Jho is to assist with the investigations. Why is Low Taek Jho so protected? The public cannot be faulted to be sceptical of Hasan and that the PAC investigations is expected to be a whitewash when the two central characters of the Prime Minister and Low Taek Jho are not summonsed for questioning.